Danish shipowner Soren Toft-Jensen has taken sole control of offshore vessel (OSV) owner A1 Offshore Solutions after a debt deal boosted his stake.
Toft-Jensen told Fyens Stiftstidende he converted DKK 50m ($22.24m) of debt to own 99.2% of the Svendborg operation's parent company A1 Partners.
His two co-founders in the two-year-old firm retain 0.4% each.
“You can write that the ownership relationship has changed with debt conversion, and you are right that it is now only me who is on the bridge and that the others do not have a role in the company anymore,” Toft-Jensen told the newspaper.
Co-founder resigned
A1 Offshore has a fleet of nine vessels and nearly 250 staff.
It has been reported that one of the co-founders, Tom Osterlund Nielsen, resigned in May from a management role over a disagreement about future strategy.
In September, TradeWinds reported that Danish owner Hove Offshore took two of its platform supply vessels (PSVs) back into its own management from A1 Offshore due to "lack of confidence" in the company.
The 3,300-dwt PSVs Poseidon Express (built 2004) and Neptun Express (built 2004) were to be managed by Maritime Construction Services (MCS) of the Netherlands instead.
"We at Hove Offshore are no longer connected with A1 Offshore," Jon Boesen, Hove's fleet manager, told TradeWinds.
Boesen claims A1 Offshore failed to pay invoices to vendors and suppliers for the two vessels, which he said put a long-term contract at risk.
Fleet expanded
Martin Laust Orberg, the chief executive of A1 Offshore at the time, told TradeWinds that Boesen was a former employee who quit his job "in anger" and is "trying to make it difficult" for the company.
Orberg had no further comment to make about the situation.
Before this, A1 had been expanding its fleet, buying an OSV from Greece's bankrupt Toisa group.
Brokers said it paid $1.85m for the 4,400-dwt platform supply vessel (PSV) Toisa Independent (built 2003).
It also bought an Eidesvik Offshore platform supply vessel, the 4,500-dwt Viking Dynamic (built 2002).
